myfirstandlast
Member
Entering unknown territory here. Leaning on the wisdom of the been there done that crowd.
How to sum up the last 7 years, the time I've known my now 14 year old stepdaughter ...
She has lived, up until just recently, with her mother and an abusive stepfather. Her mom moved out just this past summer. Due to finances, her living situation now is a home in a trailer park. I'm not judging all of them -- lived in one myself -- but this one has a bad rep. Smallish town, not rural but not quite urban.
She meets a neighbor boy, close to her age. She and her best girl friend hit it off with this guy and his brother.
Over the holidays, the he-said she-said of typical teendom and myspace chatter escalated to her and her boyfriend breaking up, then patching things up, then getting in a fight with her girlfriend, etc. All the while she is leaving comments like "death is coming sooner than I thought" and "I can't live without you" and that sort of thing. Crying, screaming, typing, fighting with her mom, all this per her mother's desperate phone call to my husband.
Apparently mom hacked into her myspace account and found info about her "cutting" and other stuff. Says she has threatened to kill herself. Things really escalated and she hit/pushed her mom. Runs away from home. Told her friends that her mom kicked her out and locked her out of the house, not sure if that's true.
Further email snooping reveals that she and her friend were getting drunk recently while home alone, and smoking weed she got from her boyfriend. That she is wanting to have sex with this guy. He was verbally abusive to her (in myspace messages) calling her names, and mad that she wouldn't have sex with him (at the time) and accusing her of liking other guys more, etc. She seems so desperate to keep him.
Compounding this with the fact that as of the end of summer, she was almost moved in with us due to her attitude at home and problems with school and other things. She cried and begged and pleaded and promised to get better grades, treat her mother better, and go to counseling. The deal was she does those things, or she moves out here with us. She does NOT want to do that ... new school, hour from friends, etc. but she has not held up her end of the bargain.
Here's the problem I've seen from day one ... neither parent enforces. They are good parents with a manipulative child. She's a good kid, but she has learned to get her way. She bullies or ignores her mom, and cries to daddy and always, always gets what SHE wants. I've never seen anything else.
I'm scared to death.
The plan is to move her in with us effective tonight. Neither she nor her mother know right now. (Her mom might tip her off and she'll run away from home again.) At the end of summer, the mom had been relieved that she would be moving in with us ... but caved when her daughter cried and begged and swore to change ... and so did her dad.
I'm not a super parent. I'm a lousy stepmom. I don't know how anyone can treat their own children and their steps the same, although my husband is better at it than me ... he does tend to see my kids faults a lot more clearly and consider them bigger issues. I guess I'm the same. We need so desperately to get on the same page here.
We're locking up the guns and ammo (we hunt; all our kids are used to guns, know gun safety, how to shoot, etc.) because of her suicide threat. Don't know how much farther to go ... lock up all rope and cord and knives and ... *sob* I just don't KNOW.
I told my hubby he has to be prepared to call the police on her if necessary. I told him I will NOT tolerate being hit or abused, period. I left my ex so that MY daughter wouldn't grow up in an abusive household and turn out how his daughter is becoming. So scared. She's close to being an adult, bigger than me, and all uncontrolled emotion.
I told him he has to be prepared to take her to the ER if she threatens suicide, or call an ambulance if she refuses to go, and let them FORCE her to go. That she could be admitted for her own safety and that we need to be prepared for that possibility.
I don't want to treat ANY threat as an idle threat, but she has a history of blowing up and saying things for attention and sympathy as a means to the end that she desires. I hope I don't sound awful ... I love her ... I'd say the same about my own kid. Mine are certainly not perfect. I've had so many days where I felt like an absolute failure as a parent ... I don't feel qualified to offer my husband and his daughter's mom advice ... but I don't feel like I can sit back and watch the girl play off them and walk away from this with nothing changing yet again.
I'm sharing this with my husband and with her mom after we pick her up. I don't want to sound judgmental of either of them or of my stepdaughter ... I'm more scared of nothing changing than I am of the unknown about to explode here.
My advice would be to ground her from phone and computer indefinitely ... until we have a PLAN in place. What plan? No idea. I told hubby that she needs counseling whether she wants it or not. She's been abused, watched abuse, and is getting into reckless and illegal activities ... she doesn't want to go and her mom won't make her. She says she'll run away from home. It goes on and on ...
Can't even post this message without more drama being added to the story ... will update later. :frown: